Global e-car registrations surge, BMW comes 6th and VW 9th – report

Clean Energy Wire

The number of electric cars worldwide rose 64 percent last year to reach 5.6 million in early 2019, according to the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Württemberg (ZSW). “China remains the undisputed global leader with a total of 2.6 million e-cars. It is followed by the USA with 1.1 million e-cars. Just short of 142,000 electric vehicles are now rolling on Germany’s roads,” the researchers report in a press release (in English). “Tesla accounts for the largest number of newly registered vehicles, nearly 234,000, followed by the Chinese brands BYD and BAIC. The most successful German manufacturer was BMW, taking sixth place with close to 87,000 electric cars, followed by VW in ninth place.”

The uptake of electric cars in Germany has been slower than originally expected by the government, which had originally planned to have one million e-cars on German roads by 2020. But several mass-market models by major carmakers - especially VW, Audi, and Mercedes - are about to be launched, fanning expectations that e-mobility will finally emergy from its current niche status.